The first lady is unpacking in Chappaqua. The new neighbors are ambivalent: The police
security detail, the limited parking, the reporters, photographers and gawkers will make daily
life difficult.

The dominating women in the president's scandal are hard at work on earthly reincarnations.
Monica is slimming down and getting paid for showing the work in progress. Linda is tripping
on nips and tucks and a new nose. And the wife moves away.

Here are the post-modern temptresses of Bill Clinton, carrying out the vengeance of Eris, the
Greek goddess of discord, who tempted Paris to award a golden apple to the fairest. Hera
offered Paris wealth and power, Athena offered military glory, and Aphrodite offered herself
as the most beautiful woman in the world.

In the upside-down world of Bill Clinton, parallels are furiously deconstructed to fit the
moment. Hillary promised political power, Monica offered sexual pleasure and Linda
threatened exposure. Unlike Paris, the president couldn't choose one without taking the
baggage of all three. His choices were downscale and domesticated.

Like most things post-modern, the joke is personal. The Goddess of Discord doesn't start a
Trojan War, with disastrous consequences for the nation, but merely competes for attention
with the Middle East peace talks. Discord weaves a web of trivia, diminishment, gossip and
impeachment. Hey, it's no big deal.

Hillary, the wife, is married to neither Zeus nor Menelaus. She is seduced by her own political
ambitions not the handsome Paris. Monica, the mistress, goes commercial with her body, an
allegorical justice, selling herself in behalf of Jenny Craig. Linda, the betrayer, who was
farthest from the Oval Office, is the fury, making the most painful mischief. She is the most in
need of a make-over, but it's too late for a pretty nose to shape a pretty personality. Things
still smell just as bad as they did through the old one.

Neither Bill Clinton nor his temptresses are the stuff of epic tragedy. They belong to comedy,
examples of foibles, not fatal flaws. Tragedy offers insight into the human condition; comedy
offers laughs about love, sex, stamina and continuity. Tragedy is about heroes and heroines;
comedy is about hypocrites, sexpots, squealers and fools.

New York magazine interviewed several smart, educated, hip New York liberal women and
learned that lots of women who are like Hillary don't like Hillary. On the spectrum of left to
liberal, there's a visceral negative reaction to her reaction to Monica.

Typical is the woman who resents her never correcting the record about a vast right-wing
conspiracy: "Hillary has never acknowledged that her characterization was self-serving and
dishonest.'' On the "left'' coast, Annette Benning, wife of Warren Beatty, tells Vanity Fair
that `(Hillary) always appears to be doing what's politically expedient in the most transparent
way.''

In her biography of the first lady, Gail Sheehy shows Hillary seeking a fashion and cosmetic
make-over every bit as vain as Monica and Linda, coupled with "menopausal zest.''

"Gone were the dark dominatrix eyebrows and the barrel-bottomed suit jackets and treacly
pastels,'' she writes. "She was 51 before she found her personal style for the first time.''

All the president's women and the president as well are getting up and getting on with it, a
little rough for wear but not mortally wounded. In the therapeutic society we call it the
Achilles "heal.''

When Bill Clinton learned that Hillary needed him more to unpack the boxes and put the
furniture in place in the new house than Israel and Syria needed him at the peace table, he
began his new life as a sidekick. How very Clintonesque.

It's difficult to ascribe heroic dimensions to men in the public eye; the psychological and
photographic close-ups overwhelm political judgment with superficial information. There's
some truth to that. But ultimately, American voters are a savvy lot -- maybe even in New
York.

Hillary keeps saying her run for the Senate is less about her and Rudy Guiliani than about the
people of New York. That's certainly who she has to fear most. But the goddess of discord
will not make it easy as she reaches for that big golden
apple.

01/07/00: Liddy Dole as the face of feminism 01/04/00: Hillary: From victim to victor12/30/99: 'Dream catchers' for the millennium 12/27/99: In search of a candidate with strength and eloquence 12/21/99: The president as First Lady12/16/99: Columbine with blurred hindsight 12/09/99: Homeless deserve discriminating attention12/07/99: Casual censors and deadly know-nothings 12/02/99: Why mom didn't make general: A reality tale 11/30/99: Potholes on the road to the Promised Land 11/25/99: A feast for the spirit and the stomach 11/23/99: Fathers need to say 'I (can) do' 11/18/99: Adventures of a conservative pundit 11/15/99: Traveling with Jefferson on the information highway11/11/99: Wanted: 'Foliage of forbiddinness' for the oval office 11/09/99: Eggs, art and rotten commerce 11/05/99: Al Gore, 'Alpha Male'. Bow wow. 11/01/99: Gay love10/28/99: Lose one Dole, lose two 10/26/99: Rebels with a violent cause 10/21/99: Reforming parents, reforming schools 10/19/99: The male mystique -- he shops10/13/99:The campaign of the Teletubbies10/08/99: Money is in the eye of the art dealer 10/01/99: Lincoln's 'Almost Chosen People' 09/29/99: Introducing Bill and Hillary Bickerson 09/27/99: Must we wait for the next massacre?09/24/99: Miss America meets Miss'd America09/21/99: Princeton's 'professor death'09/16/99: The Cisneros lesson09/13/99: No clemency for personal politics09/08/99: M-M-M is for manhood 08/30/99: Blocking the schoolhouse door 08/27/99: No kick from cocaine08/23/99: Movies don't kill people 08/19/99: A rude awakening 08/16/99: Dubyah and that 'language' thing 08/09/99: Chauvinist sows -- oink oink